Mother Heroic
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: Kadaj has no memories of his own, no defined humanity, yet he is cognizant. What if some of Sephiroth's memories leaked into his head? Takes place during Tseng and Elena's imprisonment in the City of the Ancients.


I've wanted to write something about Tseng and Elena's capture for quite some time, and what happened in the City of the Ancients. I've never written about Kadaj and co., but I really started to find his storyline very tragic after watching Advent Children Complete. Sephiroth's storyline to begin with broke my heart in the OG, and although I've never written about Sephiroth, I've certainly thought a lot about that part of the game. The whole clone aspect of the Compilation deals so much with the human condition, which I am a total sucker for.

Anyway, this came about originally due to a Bjork song called "Mother Heroic," which is so disgustingly perfect for Kadaj that I had to write it. If interested in hearing the song (it's really worth it), you can go here. Every single word says something to me specifically about this moment. Another thing that fueled this was the idea that Kadaj has no memories of his own, no defined humanity, yet he is cognizant. What if some of Sephiroth's memories leaked into his head?

* * *

><p><strong>Mother Heroic<strong>

_Oh thou that bowest thy ecstatic face_  
><em>thy perfect sorrows are the world's to keep<em>

_Wherefore onto thy knee_  
><em>come weep<em>  
><em>with a prayer<em>

_Oh thou that bowest thy ecstatic face_  
><em>thy perfect sorrows are the world's to keep<em>

_Wherefore onto thy knee_  
><em>come weep<em>  
><em>with a prayer<em>

_Mother Heroic_  
><em>Mother Glorious<em>

_Beholding in thy eye_  
><em>immortal tears<em>

_Oh thou that bowest thy ecstatic face_

("Mother Heroic" by Bjork)

Shells are something he has never seen.

In houses, there are doorways, and doorways infer that people have come and gone, always over the threshold and back again.

Kadaj thinks that maybe this threshold was waiting for him, the same way that he has a sole purpose here, staring out the window. The trees glow somewhere in the distance, and his hair obscures his vision of their light; it is the same shade.

The keening somewhere in the background melds with the sounds emitting from his mind, and in there, they make a beautiful dissonant music that brings him closer to the only thing he holds within his emotional reserves.

Silver, silver everywhere; tones of black and gray, just light and shadow. In the room behind the other closed door, in the room behind the threshold, he hears the keening, and somewhere in his inner eye, he pictures a face that holds no meaning for him.

Shorter hair, dark hair, black, nothing in between, just black. A face, a few faces, a realization, beautiful cheek bones made of metal with a headdress made of silver. A year. Somehow, he recognizes sadness in both expressions.

And the screams there become lonely sounds of a wolf howling in the distance, a wolf made of cold metal, with a throat that can only shed echoes and fur as it runs through the glowing forest made up of nothing but cold trees without leaves.

It yells, it says something in a language that he doesn't know, but that might be because he's been staring from this shell house for too long as his brothers try to poke and prod and coax (such a delicate word) the truth out of these two vagabond thieves.

The blonde one, the one with hair like sunlight, like the president he knows is hiding something, passed out well before.

But this one, the dark haired one that is suddenly somehow familiar, living there in his memory, is making melodious music that echoes through the forest, through the shells, through whorls of pearl and memories and the familial comforts of a long-dead race that his own mother had decided against: _no, not of this world._

His brothers have nearly cried with the bereft sorrow of loss without ever having found, and they share hair color. He wonders, somewhere in his memory, about having a brother bound by blood. Somewhere, in these images he sees passing through his newly born mind like a picture show projected by something he doesn't know the origin of, a blond head that looks at him kindly. A blond head, a face, that is kind, and vanished; a face that is somehow contained within the president's that he terrifies. That he knows, as he handles the ID cards, he will throw down as a gambler throws down dice without the fear of loss, with blood, saying, _I know, sir, how you hide._

But somehow, there is sorrow there interlacing with the faces. There is sorrow as familiarity slowly breaks in his mind, but it is not his.

And there throughout the pearl, the screams lock themselves into each curl of the shell, a voice that is yearning to wrap itself around a name the same way that this house yearns to reveal what laughter and words it contained when people lived here. People, Cetra, originals. And Kadaj closes his eyes and wonders, distantly, what it would be like to sit somewhere in a town he has never been to made of fire, and say, _Hello. I saw a beautiful woman in the mountains. Please come in, I know you. I know you, my son. Everyone else is dead._

Kadaj has always admired birds. There is something about the outstretch of a wing that makes his heart flutter, and although he doesn't think about his organs often since he's not sure that they're actually there, he does feel something in his chest when he watches them fly through the sky. The broken-winged ones are his favorite; he feels joy when he watches them. Joy for Kadaj is the reminder that he has his own name.

When the keening wails come, he feels tears reach his eyes, and he doesn't know why. There is something on his fingertips inside of the leather of his gloves, something that he doesn't understand; perhaps the texture of hair, the feel of a sword pushing into flesh, the sweet tracings of a thumb across the precious contours of someone who knows him. And it occurs to him, that someone can know him. Someone.

Kadaj doesn't know kindness. Kadaj knows of desire. Kadaj knows of blood, and an ephemeral light that rose him from somewhere in the depths of a cavern he was afraid of at first. He knew that he was a child, coming into the world and aging years in minutes, but somewhere there beyond the darkness, somewhere beyond the cold stones and the strange remaining feelings of a green soulful flow, he fled and he smelled blood. He smelled the necessity. He knew as he ascended and formed, like a star beyond the planet, like a small imploding expanse of time and space and dust, that he wanted. He desired.

And now he can hear nothing but wails, but tears, and he knows the ecstatic noise is the same as his own desire, the wanton crying is much like his own. He says, _Loz, Yazoo, please go on. Please continue._The dark-haired Turk is screaming; the words aren't words. They're small sounds constrained in his throat, and Kadaj realizes that his prisoner knows sorrow.

The glow on the horizon is quiet. He is quiet. He remembers. He thinks, _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Silver. Silver everywhere.


End file.
